Our National Titles for 2016 were held at Royal Queensland Yacht Squadron (RQYS), January 5th to 8th.

Between the top three boats it was an extremely close series, with corrected times giving margins of between 3 and 8 seconds, repeatedly. Vivace, Stay Tuned and Reo Speedwagon were going to fill the podium without question, with the final race, race 9, being the decider. Race 9’s finishing order was Reo Speedwagon from Stay Tuned and Vivace which was the finishing order for the overall series.

The day after the series a query was raised by both Stay Tuned and Vivace as to how Reo Speedwagon had achieved such a low rating. My immediate response was to order a copy certificate from Yacht Racing Services who administer the rating system.

Reo had been put together during December and had been measured and rated during the pre Christmas rush, but within the time allowance as detailed in our constitution. A rating certificate was issued with a rating of 0.793 due to an error which had occurred in the transposition of data entries.

On receipt of a copy of the certificate it was immediately apparent there was an error in the mainsail dimensions with the MUW and MTW dimensions being identical. Recalculation of the boats rating was carried out and a certificate was re-issued on February 1st, giving Reo a rating of 0.803.

Numerous consultations with rule books, International Jurors and the host Club ensued, including re-measuring to make sure this was correct.

The Protest Committee convened by RQYS in preliminary discussion, and prior to any hearing drew upon RRS Case 57 were a certificate was issued with a similar error and Case 57 found that the results must stand. From this a redress hearing was held on March 12th. , applied for by Stay Tuned, which was not granted.

It should be noted at this stage that the protest committee formed did not take into account the ASBA constitution, listed as a condition of entry in the Notice of Race, item 1 Rules, point 1.2.1 stating that the ASBA constitution shall apply to all boats.

Under the ASBA constitution, rule 14 describes the authority to measure, or re-measure boats placed 1,2 &3 (14.10) and 14.4, 14.5 gives the committee the authority to override the results and disqualify or treat as they see fit.

Following on from the decision by the RQYS protest Committee, ASBA have met ( telephone conference ) and consulted with an International Juror.

Taking the advice of the juror, the ASBA committee, based on the constitution, elected to have the results recalculated to the correct rating rather than exclude or disqualify and apply these corrected results to the regatta.

After the recalculated results, we award the places as follows:

1st Place – Stay Tuned – 15 points

2nd Place – Vivace – 19 points

3rd Place – Reo Speedwagon – 24 points

Graham Sherring and crew have been declared our National Champions for 2016.

Full results will be available on the Royal Queensland Yacht Squadron web site later this week.

In reaching this decision we have to the best of our knowledge gone through all proper process with strict adherence to the RRS, the rules of Yachting Australia and all other bodies having jurisdiction over our sport